Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is by Ashutosh Ghildiyal, Vice President of Growth & Strategy at Integra.

Scholarly publishing stands at a critical inflection point. Researchers face mounting pressure to publish frequently and visibly, while publishers must balance growth with credibility. Institutions pursue rankings, and funders seek measurable societal impact. Meanwhile, public appetite for accessible, reliable science has never been greater, even as trust in expertise continues to erode. We produce more research than ever before, yet confidence in its quality is declining. These are not isolated problems — they are symptoms of a fundamentally misaligned system, one in which pressures and incentives are poorly coordinated across the research ecosystem.

When we speak of a systems approach to research publishing, we mean viewing the scholarly ecosystem as a network of interconnected components: researchers, institutions, publishers, funders, and the public, whose actions continuously influence one another through feedback loops. In such a system, pressures or incentives applied in one area inevitably affect outcomes elsewhere. Systems thinking emphasizes holistic alignment rather than isolated fixes; it seeks to understand how structures, policies, and behaviors interact to produce the results we observe.

Fragmented Foundations: How Silos and Misaligned Incentives Undermine Research

The strain on scholarly publishing generates numerous problems, prompting a variety of interventions, including new tools, technologies, and policy reforms. While these solutions may address specific symptoms, they often fail to tackle the underlying architecture of the crisis. Issues related to research integrity, for instance, are not isolated aberrations; they reflect structural misalignments that affect how knowledge is produced, validated, and disseminated. This systemic perspective is critical to understanding why the ecosystem continues to struggle despite repeated attempts at reform.

The root causes of these challenges are twofold, forming a self-reinforcing cycle. First, researchers face intense pressure to publish in order to gain recognition and advance their careers. Career progression, institutional prestige, and funding opportunities all hinge disproportionately on publication volume and citation counts, creating a “publish-or-perish” culture in which the imperative to produce often outweighs the imperative to produce well. This culture discourages replication studies, the publication of null results, and efforts in knowledge translation, which are essential for scientific rigor and societal benefit.

Second, publishers operate under pressure to grow and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. These dual pressures reinforce a volume-based economy that prioritizes quantity over quality, speed over rigor, and novelty over reproducibility. This system amplifies inefficiencies and often fails to serve the broader interests of science or society.

Compounding these pressures is the fragmentation of stakeholder interests. Researchers, institutions, publishers, and funders each pursue legitimate objectives within their own contexts, yet these parallel efforts frequently create conflicts when viewed across the ecosystem. The absence of coordinated dialogue about collective goals leads to inefficiencies, quality gaps, and erosion of trust. For example, while funders increasingly mandate open access to research, institutions may still reward publications in high-impact journals behind paywalls, creating conflicting incentives for researchers and publishers alike.

This fragmentation also fuels a perception problem. Publishers are often viewed as extracting more value than they provide, prompting researchers, institutions, and funders to question their contributions despite the substantial work performed behind the scenes. Alternative models, such as preprints and post-publication open peer review, are emerging and challenging the traditional publishing paradigm. The divergence between insider perceptions of value and external skepticism highlights the need for publishers to demonstrate and communicate their contributions more clearly, ensuring that each stakeholder sees tangible benefit from the system.

Realigning the System: The Central Challenge of Incentives

While many stakeholders agree on what needs to change, achieving meaningful reform is difficult because incentives across the ecosystem remain misaligned. Researchers have little motivation to publish null results, replicate studies, or engage in knowledge translation if these efforts do not advance their careers. Institutions continue to rely heavily on publication counts and h-indices for hiring and promotion decisions, while publishers struggle to balance accessibility, scalability, and business sustainability. Until incentives are realigned around shared outcomes, rigor, relevance, and progress will remain piecemeal.

This rebalancing requires concrete structural changes. New metrics must account for reproducibility, transparency, and societal relevance, rather than focusing solely on citation counts. Infrastructure investments are needed to support responsible publishing, ranging from AI-assisted peer review tools to communication training and operational systems enabling broader dissemination. Standards for scholarly success should be co-developed through genuine dialogue among researchers, publishers, institutions, funders, and the public they collectively serve, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned toward shared goals.

The solution cannot come from publishers or any single stakeholder alone. Academia and publishers must take joint action. Institutions should rethink career advancement and researcher evaluation, moving beyond publication counts as the primary metric, while publishers shift their focus from maximizing articles published to maximizing readership value and societal impact. Success in this transition requires institutional support, as moving from an article economy to a readership economy depends on broad buy-in.

Rebalancing is not about asking stakeholders to do more with already full plates; it is about changing what we value and reward. Measures send clear signals about priorities: if researchers are measured only by publication count, quality suffers; if journals are evaluated solely by impact factor, relevance and accessibility are neglected; if research is funded without broader dissemination requirements, public understanding of science will not improve. Conversely, aligning metrics and rewards with reproducibility, openness, and societal relevance can drive meaningful behavioral change and enhance the collective benefit of research.

The Deeper Question: Benefit to the World

Beyond immediate stakeholders, we must ask whether the current state of scholarly publishing truly benefits the world at large. While it sustains the careers of researchers, the operations of publishers, and the business of vendors and service providers, does it advance human development, scientific understanding, or solutions to pressing global problems?

Much valuable research is published, and many publishers perform high-quality work reviewing, curating, and disseminating research. Yet significant wastage exists in the form of redundant studies, flawed research, or work that may misinform or harm. The challenge is not merely that bad research exists; it is that high-quality research often fails to reach those who could benefit from it, while lower-quality studies may circulate widely.

Technology, including AI, can help address certain challenges, such as managing the volume of publications or detecting methodological issues, but it cannot solve structural or cultural misalignments. Fundamental changes are required in how research is incentivized, how researchers and institutions are evaluated, how science communication is funded, and how the purpose of the research enterprise is understood.

From Fragmentation to Integration: A Path Forward

The challenges facing scholarly publishing — fragmented stakeholders, misaligned incentives, and eroding trust — are fundamentally systems-level problems that require systems-level solutions. Expertise and specialization, while necessary, can narrow perspectives, causing stakeholders to search for solutions only within their own domains. Yet the reality is that research ecosystems are interconnected. Without a holistic view, a coherent strategy, or clarity about necessary reforms cannot emerge. Strategic thinking must shift constantly between macro-level understanding of the system and micro-level operational considerations to maintain perspective and drive meaningful change.

A systems view recognizes that the survival and success of each stakeholder are essential for the ecosystem to thrive. Researchers, institutions, publishers, funders, and the public are interdependent, and innovation arises from interactions across these groups rather than isolated silos. Translating this perspective into action requires strategies that align stakeholders and create shared incentives.

Pathways to Systemic Integration

Achieving systemic integration involves coordinated action across five complementary pathways:

1. Structured Dialogue and Roundtables: Regular convenings of researchers, editors, funders, institutional leaders, and publishers can foster honest discussion about shared challenges, priorities, and emerging solutions. These should be action-oriented forums designed to co-develop policies and drive systemic improvements, rather than symbolic meetings with limited impact. Examples include STM’s Research Integrity initiative and COPE forums.
2. Joint Global Research Charters: Shared principles and codes of practice, jointly endorsed by funders, publishers, and institutions, can set universal standards for transparency, quality, and dissemination. These charters create a common language and accountability framework across disciplines and regions, supporting alignment across diverse contexts. Examples include DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) and the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation.
3. Integrated Incentive Structures: Career advancement, funding, and recognition must reward rigor, reproducibility, transparency, and societal relevance rather than volume or novelty alone. Coordinated incentives across institutions, publishers, and funders reduce pressures that prioritize quantity over quality and encourage behavior aligned with the public good. An example is the Hong Kong Principles for Assessing Researchers.
4. Collaborative Infrastructure and Tools: Technology and operational systems should be developed collectively rather than in silos. Shared platforms for peer review, pre-publication checks, and data management reduce redundancy, improve transparency, and ensure consistent standards across journals and institutions. Examples include ORCID, Crossref initiatives, and the Research Data Alliance.
5. Continuous Feedback Loops: Evaluation mechanisms that track research impact, reliability, and accessibility allow stakeholders to course-correct in real time. Open feedback among authors, reviewers, publishers, and readers strengthens trust and fosters shared accountability across the system. Examples include PREreview and F1000 Open Peer Review initiatives.

The Promise of Shared Stewardship

The crisis in scholarly publishing is neither inevitable nor insurmountable. It results from fragmented incentives and siloed decision-making. The solution requires a fundamental reimagining of how knowledge is created, validated, and shared.

This begins with recognizing the research ecosystem as an ecosystem. Its health depends on all stakeholders acting with awareness of their interdependence. When publishers thrive at the expense of researchers’ autonomy, when institutions prioritize rankings over research quality, and when funders demand impact without supporting infrastructure to ensure rigor, the entire system becomes unstable.

The path forward demands courage and humility. Most importantly, it requires moving from transactional relationships to genuine partnerships. Stakeholders must stop viewing each other as obstacles or adversaries and start seeing themselves as co-stewards of a shared mission: advancing human knowledge in ways that are trustworthy, accessible, and beneficial to society.

This is not idealism — it is pragmatism. The current trajectory is unsustainable. Public trust continues to erode, and alternative models are emerging. The question is not whether change will occur, but whether stakeholders will shape that change collectively or have it imposed separately.

The opportunity is profound: to build a research ecosystem where excellence is defined not by how much is published but by how well knowledge serves the pursuit of truth; where success is measured not by citations but by understanding advanced and lives improved; and where the value of each stakeholder is clear because it contributes visibly to the flourishing of the whole.

This vision is achievable only if stakeholders choose integration over fragmentation, shared purpose over narrow self-interest, and long-term credibility over short-term gains. The future of scholarly publishing will be determined by whether stakeholders move beyond defending positions to building a system worthy of the knowledge it seeks to advance and the society it serves. Trust, transparency, and shared commitment are the foundations upon which this future will be built, recognizing that individual success is inseparable from collective responsibility for advancing human understanding and flourishing.

The questions are clear. The challenge now is whether we have the courage and collective will to answer them.

Reviewer credits: Thanks to Chef Haseeb Md. Irfanullah for his peer review and support of today’s guest post.